Sync Your OneDrive to your Computer

OneDrive is Microsoft's personal cloud file storage service. It allows one to synchronize files to the cloud for collaboration and can serve as a backup of files in the event your computer becomes inoperable. 

OneDrive is intended for personal files and smaller collaboration groups. SharePoint can serve a similar role for larger, shared file collaboration and storage.

Only sync OneDrive to secure computers, like your office desktop computer or your university-owned laptop. Do not sync to a shared computer (like a home computer), because your OneDrive files may be accessible to others who use the computer. If someone deletes your OneDrive files off the computer, it will delete the files from OneDrive in the Cloud. 

Furthermore, you might not want to enable the "Back up important PC folders to OneDrive" option on personal computer, as your desktop, documents, music and pictures folders on that computer will be synced up to your Western OneDrive.

OneDrive is built into Windows 11 and will not need to be installed on computers running it. It also is pre-installed on Western owned devices. However, macOS, older versions of Windows, and other devices may need to have the OneDrive client manually installed from Microsoft's website. If you need to install the client, simply download it, install, and sign in when prompted.

On computers with OneDrive pre-installed, search the Start Menu or Finder for OneDrive and launch it to sign in. To verify if you are signed in, you can access the OneDrive Cloud icon from the System Tray or the Menu Bar.  

NOTE: When signing in you may be asked if you would like to enable Important Folder Back Up. This is not recommended for personal devices. See Configure OneDrive for Important Folder Backup.

OneDrive has the ability to back up documents stored in important folders automatically. On Windows, these libraries (Microsoft's name for these special folders) are the Desktop, Documents, and Pictures libraries. Turning this on will also allow you to seamlessly work on documents on multiple computers from these libraries. Existing OneDrive items outside of these will be present in the OneDrive folder as you would see them online.  This does not backup any folders outside the libraries listed, and those items would need to be moved manually into the OneDrive folder. 

Instructions on how to enable the backup for both Windows and macOS may be found on Microsoft's configuration article. 

NOTE: Enabling this feature on a personal device is not recommended, as it will sync existing documents in those libraries to your Western OneDrive, storing personal documents in the Western cloud. We do recommend enabling this on Western owned devices when using OneDrive with your Western account.

Your OneDrive will be accessible from File Explorer on Windows or from Finder in macOS. If you have multiple accounts on your computer for OneDrive, such as a personal OneDrive account with Microsoft, your Western OneDrive account folder will display as your name followed by "Western Washington University". 

Files copied into this folder will sync up to the cloud. After the Sync is completed, they will be accessible on other computers and the web. 
 

After syncing your documents, you will see icons that signify the sync status of a file in File Explorer. A green check mark means that the file is stored locally on the computer as well as uploaded to the cloud. A cloud icon represents a file that is in OneDrive but hasn't yet been downloaded to the device you're on. Attempting to open the file will download the file automatically which should then switch to a green checkmark. A pair of arrows pointing to themselves in a circle represents an item currently being synced. 

While not shown, an icon with an X symbol represents a file stored locally that is having difficulty being uploaded to OneDrive and is not available on the web or other computers. The OneDrive client in the system tray will tell you why an item can't be synced. You can reach out to the Help desk to resolve these errors.